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Throughout generations, we've witnessed significant changes in the metagame through the exponential rise and fall of threatening Pokemon. Despite this, there have and always will be certain Pokemon which dominate and stand out above the rest. Whether these threats are offensive or defensive, every player should have an idea of how to deal with said threats. That's where you guys come in!

The purpose behind Victim Of The Week is to take a top tier threat and flip it on its head with a Pokemon that can either check or counter it. With this, we can all share our own way of dealing with said threat and gain broader, more sophisticated knowledge of how to deal with these Pokemon.

Procedure:

Every round, I will nominate a Pokemon for discussion. You guys will then discuss and nominate various Pokemon that you believe can either check or counter the designated threat, with a clear explanation of how exactly they do that

Each Victim Of The Week will consist of four days for posting nominations and three days for voting. The new Victim Of The Week will be announced on the same day as the previous week's winner

After the deadline, there are three days where everyone can vote on which set they think is best. Bandwagon votes are illegal and will result in your vote being void. Your vote must also be written in bold

Once the results are in, the winner's set will be archived and the next Victim Of The Week will be announced

Rules:

Your nomination must include an importable set

When nominating your Pokemon, include how it can check / counter the Victim Of The Week, how it works, and how effective it is in the Battle Spot metagame. Damage calcs are especially useful for helping back up your nomination (although are not compulsory). You can find the damage calculator here

Your Pokemon must hold some sort of viability in the metagame. Niche Pokemon are perfectly fine, but don't go with Pokemon hold minuscule viability like Shedinja and Electivire. The viability rankings are your best friend and will give you a great guideline of what kind of Pokemon you should be looking at (but also feel free to be creative and stem away from this if you're feeling saucy)

Respect other player's nominations. You may not agree with what they say, but in the end it is their nomination. Feel free to leave opinions, but don't be rude about it

Your check / counter must abide by the following definitions;

Pokémon A checks Pokémon B if, when Pokémon A is given a free switch into Pokémon B, Pokémon A can win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax.

Pokémon A counters Pokémon B if Pokémon A can manually switch into Pokémon B and still win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax.

There is to be strictly no modification of your nomination after the four-day deadline. Changes in votes are allowed, but must be done within the three day deadline and as follows;

To celebrate the beginning of SM Victim Of The Week, we're going to start with arguably one of the most annoying Pokemon to walk the face of the Pre-Pokebank metagame, Mimikyu! This wannabee Pikachu holds a place in BSS with its incredibly unique ability, disguise, allowing it to take 0 damage the first time it is attacked in battle. A deadly late game cleaner, Mimikyu quickly became infamous with its common Swords Dance build, proving to be a nightmare for unprepared teams. Support sets were also thrown around on the table, with Will-O-Wisp, Destiny Bond and Z-Curse gaining usage towards the end of Season One. As if it weren't already annoying enough! Ghostium-Z became a popular choice, allowing Mimikyu to break bulkier threats such as Celesteela, while picking off faster offensive Ghost-types with Shadow Sneak. So, how do you stop Mimikyu?

Note that your submission can be either Pre-Pokebank or Post-Pokebank​

Mega-Scizor is one of the main counters to Mimikyu. Roost allows him to take a Z-SClaw + Shadow Sneak and payback with Bullet Punch. Note that Scizor could also set up on Mimikyu after taking the Z-move, Roost allowing to 'stall'. Besides that, BPunch is a strong STAB priority move boosted by Technician. Thief is also boosted by Technician (despite not stealing something too). A standard SD Roost that fits well in the meta with its great bulk, typing, and checking all that Fairy types on BSS.

Excadrill can switch in and remove Mimikyu without much difficulty thanks to its Choice Scarf and ability, Mold Breaker, which ignores the one thing that makes Mimikyu so great: Disguise. This means that Mimikyu cannot afford to set-up and thus fails to take Excadrill out before being taken out itself. Overall, this set makes for a fastastic revenge killer that can easily remove most of the electric, fairy and steel types that are commonly seen in the ladder.

Solid defense and a resist to Mimi's strongest STAB. Can ID to keep up with SD's. Rocky Helmet helps break Sash/generally helps beat Mimi while Roost stalling. Kind of hard to fit on teams but works great on stall and certain balance builds. Whether you want Toxic or Whirlwind or something else entirely is mainly up to preference but ID is the key move here to survive through SD's.

Celesteela does not worry about of Never-Ending Nightmare, and his big, green body can take Mimikyu's moves as Play Rough and Shadow Claw without troubles. Instead Heavy Slam does a lot of damage on the little ghost since Celesteela is pretty heavy, like 999,9 kg if I remember correctly. I don't think somebody wanna this thing fall down on a feet.

Will-O-Wisp sure is annoying for a Pokemon like Celesteela 'cause it deletes the help from Leftovers and it nerfs Celesteela's attack. But Leech Seed can help on this situation making a pseudo-recovery garanteed for the Ultra Beast, plus Heavy Slam still gets much damage on Mimikyu even if it's a 2HKO this time:

For the rest, I think you need few words to understand who is this Pokémon.
Extremely bulky with a good type, if you are not using a supereffective move or you're not wild boosted you're probably going to struggle against it.
He can help against Mega Salamence, Mega Scizor, Tapu Lele, Garchomp, Kartana, he has a moverpool that contains Leech Seed, Toxic and Protect which allows it to slowly wear down the foe while restoring its health.
Flamethrower even, to beat down Pokémon like Scizor, Kartana and, really soon, Ferrothorn.

Probably, after pokébank, Celesteela will have many trouble as much Fire-type 'mons are going to be used much, but sure is Celesteela did his work in a great way in pre-bank meta, and I'm sure he will be still cool.

Clefable doesn't mind Mimi's Sword Dance and can setup itself. Even with a Life Orb and Before the activation of the Kee Berry it wouldn't be 2HKO'ed by Adamant max attack Mimikyu, being able to heal, fire back, or freely setup vs it. Specially with a Kee Berry.

Furthermore Clefable doesn't mind Burns, Paralysis, and Toxic (this last one with Rest though), so it can just switch into Mimikyu safely.
The only way that Mimikyu has to deal with Clefable is Curse, that is kind of a gamble, since Clefable can simply switch out and heal back later.

Hey everyone, Im here with some sick memes "innovation" that actually does pretty well versus mimikyu, well also having decent surprise value to maybe pick up some sweeps?(bad justification but I swear this thing is p cool)

ok so the premise is simple. Get in versus mimikyu, break disguise as they proc weak armor and figy berry, and kill next turn while being out of range of any of there attacks. With the given speed investment, it hits 196 speed which is decent enough to get its job done. The set is also simple, stabs, sd if you have a chance to set up, and taunt to stop things from setting up against you! I understand this isnt the best set in terms of practicality, but it's certainly not horrible or anything, so give it a try and all that jazz, you may just be pleasantly surprised!

P.S. If any mod has the time could they edit a skarm sprite into the post? Im on a phone and it wont let me paste sprites :(

P.S.S. Sorry for also submitting a skarm set NOVED, I swear I didn't see you had posted defensive skarm until after I had come up with the idea! D:

the second hit of +1 Gear Grind OHKOes Mimikyu after the first hit breaks Disguise. Lum saves you from Wisp Mimi, Life Orb is good because Klinklang is weak as shit, I only included lefties because that's on the NU analysis lol, Wide Lens makes Gear Grind more accurate.

In the prebank meta, Haxorus carved out a small niche from under Garchomp's shadow as a check to Mimikyu. His very slightly higher speed tier ensures with max investment, he will always be faster than Mimikyu and Iron Tail will OHKO reliably (as reliably as 75acc can provide, that is) thanks to Mold Breaker. He can switch in to a predicted swords dance and score an OHKO with Iron Tail while Shadow Sneak is only a 3HKO at +2, allowing it a safe switch on that move as well.

The choice of Band vs Wide Lens is kind of pure power verses versatility. Band allows it a shot at an OHKO with Iron Tail even after being burned by a Will-O-Wisp, while Wide Lens gives it a more accurate Iron Tail as well as some flexibility in that it can use Taunt/DD or SD as well, though setting up on Mimikyu itself is far from advisable. Mimikyu is often used as a way to stop to dragon type sweeps due to its typing/ability and STAB play rough, but cannot do this to Haxorus (or M-Gyarados, but M-Gyarados does not outspeed without a dragon dance and is also vulnerable to Play Rough and Will-O-Wisp).

Much of this is rendered kind of moot in the days of Bank since there are now more reliable and overall more viable mold breaker options such as Excadrill, but the presence of Mimikyu makes Mold Breaker a much more valuable ability in general.

compared to tough claws charizard X, adaptability mega lucario, or even the recently nerfed parental bond mega kangaskan, mimikyu's burst has no match against all these gen6 senpais. Even in front of non-mega mons like azumarill and garchomp, mimikyu is way far behind. What makes mimikyu special and annoying is its normal, fighting, dragon immunit typing and its ability disguise.So lots of walls can shut it down. Hippowdon has always been a reliable physical wall in gen 6, and has long been a good start up pokemon in a charizard X/ M lucario core. I don't see the reason why a wall that can turn down a power-up punch M kangaskan can't deal with a pokemon which only has a base attack state of 90.
Hippowdon may not have a resistance to mimikyu's STAB moves like ferrothorn has, however hippowdon's bulkiness helps it tank many of mimikyu's moves, and use yawn afterwards to force your opponent into a dilemma situation.
calcs:
+2 252+ Atk Mimikyu Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 85-102 (39.5 - 47.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252+ Atk Mimikyu Never-Ending Nightmare (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 132-156 (61.3 - 72.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
unless something very unfortunate happens, or else hippowdon can finish its role as a start-up against mimikyu pretty well.

Some of you here may ask,"what if it's a support mimikyu with taunt?"
Lemme show you the usage state of mimikyu in season 2

As you can see from the pic, out of a hundred percent of all in mimikyus in bss, only 1.3% of them will bring the move taunt. So normally it is very safe for a hippowdon to use the move yawn in front of a mimikyu. But do pay attention to the stuff I've highlighted. Koko with a typing of electric and having a poor base special atk should have been no threat to hippowdon(252 SpA Tapu Koko Dazzling Gleam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Hippowdon: 72-85 (33.4 - 39.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO). STILL, due to its annoying ability electric surge, which prevents grounded pokemons from falling asleep, koko+mimikyu combo can be quite deadly to hippowdon. To prevent this situation from happening, it is suggested that the move whirlwind should be brought.
Finally, please do remember one thing that hippowdon is just a support pokemon, it has a huge probability of setting up in front of a mimikyu successfully, but that's just it! What matters the most is whether hippowdon's teammates can take out mimikyu or not. Yet still hippowdon serves well in breaking mimikyu's sash and preventing mimikyu to set up swords dance, making it easier for hippowdon's teammates to kick mimikyu's butt. Therefore I'd recommend this set to you all.

Mega-Scizor is one of the main counters to Mimikyu. Roost allows him to take a Z-SClaw + Shadow Sneak and payback with Bullet Punch. Note that Scizor could also set up on Mimikyu after taking the Z-move, Roost allowing to 'stall'. Besides that, BPunch is a strong STAB priority move boosted by Technician. Thief is also boosted by Technician (despite not stealing something too). A standard SD Roost that fits well in the meta with its great bulk, typing, and checking all that Fairy types on BSS.

Excadrill can switch in and remove Mimikyu without much difficulty thanks to its Choice Scarf and ability, Mold Breaker, which ignores the one thing that makes Mimikyu so great: Disguise. This means that Mimikyu cannot afford to set-up and thus fails to take Excadrill out before being taken out itself. Overall, this set makes for a fastastic revenge killer that can easily remove most of the electric, fairy and steel types that are commonly seen in the ladder.

Solid defense and a resist to Mimi's strongest STAB. Can ID to keep up with SD's. Rocky Helmet helps break Sash/generally helps beat Mimi while Roost stalling. Kind of hard to fit on teams but works great on stall and certain balance builds. Whether you want Toxic or Whirlwind or something else entirely is mainly up to preference but ID is the key move here to survive through SD's.

Celesteela does not worry about of Never-Ending Nightmare, and his big, green body can take Mimikyu's moves as Play Rough and Shadow Claw without troubles. Instead Heavy Slam does a lot of damage on the little ghost since Celesteela is pretty heavy, like 999,9 kg if I remember correctly. I don't think somebody wanna this thing fall down on a feet.

Will-O-Wisp sure is annoying for a Pokemon like Celesteela 'cause it deletes the help from Leftovers and it nerfs Celesteela's attack. But Leech Seed can help on this situation making a pseudo-recovery garanteed for the Ultra Beast, plus Heavy Slam still gets much damage on Mimikyu even if it's a 2HKO this time:

For the rest, I think you need few words to understand who is this Pokémon.
Extremely bulky with a good type, if you are not using a supereffective move or you're not wild boosted you're probably going to struggle against it.
He can help against Mega Salamence, Mega Scizor, Tapu Lele, Garchomp, Kartana, he has a moverpool that contains Leech Seed, Toxic and Protect which allows it to slowly wear down the foe while restoring its health.
Flamethrower even, to beat down Pokémon like Scizor, Kartana and, really soon, Ferrothorn.

Probably, after pokébank, Celesteela will have many trouble as much Fire-type 'mons are going to be used much, but sure is Celesteela did his work in a great way in pre-bank meta, and I'm sure he will be still cool.

Clefable doesn't mind Mimi's Sword Dance and can setup itself. Even with a Life Orb and Before the activation of the Kee Berry it wouldn't be 2HKO'ed by Adamant max attack Mimikyu, being able to heal, fire back, or freely setup vs it. Specially with a Kee Berry.

Furthermore Clefable doesn't mind Burns, Paralysis, and Toxic (this last one with Rest though), so it can just switch into Mimikyu safely.
The only way that Mimikyu has to deal with Clefable is Curse, that is kind of a gamble, since Clefable can simply switch out and heal back later.

Hey everyone, Im here with some sick memes "innovation" that actually does pretty well versus mimikyu, well also having decent surprise value to maybe pick up some sweeps?(bad justification but I swear this thing is p cool)

ok so the premise is simple. Get in versus mimikyu, break disguise as they proc weak armor and figy berry, and kill next turn while being out of range of any of there attacks. With the given speed investment, it hits 196 speed which is decent enough to get its job done. The set is also simple, stabs, sd if you have a chance to set up, and taunt to stop things from setting up against you! I understand this isnt the best set in terms of practicality, but it's certainly not horrible or anything, so give it a try and all that jazz, you may just be pleasantly surprised!

P.S. If any mod has the time could they edit a skarm sprite into the post? Im on a phone and it wont let me paste sprites :(

P.S.S. Sorry for also submitting a skarm set NOVED, I swear I didn't see you had posted defensive skarm until after I had come up with the idea! D:

the second hit of +1 Gear Grind OHKOes Mimikyu after the first hit breaks Disguise. Lum saves you from Wisp Mimi, Life Orb is good because Klinklang is weak as shit, I only included lefties because that's on the NU analysis lol, Wide Lens makes Gear Grind more accurate.

In the prebank meta, Haxorus carved out a small niche from under Garchomp's shadow as a check to Mimikyu. His very slightly higher speed tier ensures with max investment, he will always be faster than Mimikyu and Iron Tail will OHKO reliably (as reliably as 75acc can provide, that is) thanks to Mold Breaker. He can switch in to a predicted swords dance and score an OHKO with Iron Tail while Shadow Sneak is only a 3HKO at +2, allowing it a safe switch on that move as well.

The choice of Band vs Wide Lens is kind of pure power verses versatility. Band allows it a shot at an OHKO with Iron Tail even after being burned by a Will-O-Wisp, while Wide Lens gives it a more accurate Iron Tail as well as some flexibility in that it can use Taunt/DD or SD as well, though setting up on Mimikyu itself is far from advisable. Mimikyu is often used as a way to stop to dragon type sweeps due to its typing/ability and STAB play rough, but cannot do this to Haxorus (or M-Gyarados, but M-Gyarados does not outspeed without a dragon dance and is also vulnerable to Play Rough and Will-O-Wisp).

Much of this is rendered kind of moot in the days of Bank since there are now more reliable and overall more viable mold breaker options such as Excadrill, but the presence of Mimikyu makes Mold Breaker a much more valuable ability in general.

compared to tough claws charizard X, adaptability mega lucario, or even the recently nerfed parental bond mega kangaskan, mimikyu's burst has no match against all these gen6 senpais. Even in front of non-mega mons like azumarill and garchomp, mimikyu is way far behind. What makes mimikyu special and annoying is its normal, fighting, dragon immunit typing and its ability disguise.So lots of walls can shut it down. Hippowdon has always been a reliable physical wall in gen 6, and has long been a good start up pokemon in a charizard X/ M lucario core. I don't see the reason why a wall that can turn down a power-up punch M kangaskan can't deal with a pokemon which only has a base attack state of 90.
Hippowdon may not have a resistance to mimikyu's STAB moves like ferrothorn has, however hippowdon's bulkiness helps it tank many of mimikyu's moves, and use yawn afterwards to force your opponent into a dilemma situation.
calcs:
+2 252+ Atk Mimikyu Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 85-102 (39.5 - 47.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252+ Atk Mimikyu Never-Ending Nightmare (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 132-156 (61.3 - 72.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
unless something very unfortunate happens, or else hippowdon can finish its role as a start-up against mimikyu pretty well.

Some of you here may ask,"what if it's a support mimikyu with taunt?"
Lemme show you the usage state of mimikyu in season 2

As you can see from the pic, out of a hundred percent of all in mimikyus in bss, only 1.3% of them will bring the move taunt. So normally it is very safe for a hippowdon to use the move yawn in front of a mimikyu. But do pay attention to the stuff I've highlighted. Koko with a typing of electric and having a poor base special atk should have been no threat to hippowdon(252 SpA Tapu Koko Dazzling Gleam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Hippowdon: 72-85 (33.4 - 39.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO). STILL, due to its annoying ability electric surge, which prevents grounded pokemons from falling asleep, koko+mimikyu combo can be quite deadly to hippowdon. To prevent this situation from happening, it is suggested that the move whirlwind should be brought.
Finally, please do remember one thing that hippowdon is just a support pokemon, it has a huge probability of setting up in front of a mimikyu successfully, but that's just it! What matters the most is whether hippowdon's teammates can take out mimikyu or not. Yet still hippowdon serves well in breaking mimikyu's sash and preventing mimikyu to set up swords dance, making it easier for hippowdon's teammates to kick mimikyu's butt. Therefore I'd recommend this set to you all.

That Clefable looks working well against Mimikyu. It takes Mimikyu's STABs without trouble and it doesn't worry about Will-O-Wisp or Swords Dance, and the recovery can almost delete the damage that Clefable can take from the most powerfull Mimikyu's Z-move.

After some testing, I found Excadrill to be a whole lot more useful and generally more versatile than what Clefable was. Even at +2, Mimikyu struggles to break Ferrothorn, and can only properly do so with Ghostium-Z as well. While Clefable is still great, it does require a lot more preparation and support than what Ferrothorn does, which is why I am changing my vote

Ferrothorn is pretty easy to fit on a team due to it being able to handle threats other than Mimikyu itself. WoW and Curse sets can be a problem at times, but it's not completely shut down by those. It's a fantastic check to the SD sets and handles Mimi's common partners pretty well.

I don't think there's a pokemon that deals with Mimikyu as quickly and cleanly, while also being quite good for overall team comp as scarf Excadrill. Mimikyu is not the kind of pokemon I like to leave on the field for long, I'd rather KO it before I figure out which of its many potential gimmicks it's running. In my eye the one turn kill potential is what gives it an ever so slight edge over the even easier to build around Ferrothorn.

Excadrill is easily one of the best Mimikyu counters by virtue of its typing and fantastic ability. It also has great revenge killing abilities against all the Tapus and Steel-types in the current meta.

grumpy and stubborn

I wanted to nom Exca myself but got sniped. Pretty much everything else is either not great or hates getting wisped / cursed. Like others said already, Exca will be great for checking a lot of stuff outside Mimikyu as well so it looks like a cool meta mon.